A judge in Florida discovered that in two cases, two different banks were trying to foreclose first mortgages on the same piece of property. Judges in every state need to be alerted to this systemic problem; they need to see a complete paper trail and not risk allowing an entity that does not own the note or mortgage to take someone’s house.

Bill collectors are NOT social workers, debt counselors or consumer advocates. They are bill collectors, they will eat you. Oh, they may call themselves “mortgage servicers”, but what does that mean? It means they collect the money from the homeowners.

A news story coming out of Milwaukee reports that respected black jurist, Louis Butler, was one of 7 Obama nominees to face GOP opposition to being named a federal judge. Will Obama fold the tent on these seven?

A brief summary of why liberals/progressives should know and revere Judge Willaim Wayne Justice, who died on Tuesday.

Judge Sisyphus forever rolls his objective stone up the hillside and always it comes tumbling down to the subjective again.

Prosecutors are rarely held accountable for acts of misconduct or abuses of power in our country. Yet another example of this reality comes from a case out of Florida, where prosecutors engaged in egregious, intentional courtroom misconduct throughout the trial. Unfortunately, the system does not provide judges with tools to guide them on how to address acts of prosecutorial misconduct.

Should a mom be allowed to home school kids and teach creationism without evolution? What if the dad objects? What if she’d sent them to a fundamentalist school? Should the judge object?

WE are all learning, to our deep distress, how the perpetual pursuit of profits drove so many of the bad decisions that financial institutions made during the mortgage mania.

But while investors tally the losses that were generated by loose lending so far, the impact of another lax practice is only beginning to be seen. That is the big banks’ minimalist approach to meeting legal requirements — bookkeeping matters, really — when pooling thousands of loans into securitization trusts.

“Now, all of my paychecks aren’t worth
The paper they’re printed on
I get ‘em friday
But monday they’re all gone
There must be some way to change my situation
It’s time that I took up a brand new vocation”

Obviously the rushed bailout/rescue legislation hasn’t done what the politico’s said it would do. and just as obvious, it is part of Bush’s plan to tie the hands/ensure his program of a new Congress and President.